I’ve said before that what genuinely worries me is an exchange during the debates: if the issue comes up – and why wouldn’t it? – Trump will presumably say we shouldn’t take in Syrian refugees; and Hillary will presumably say that we should take in plenty more of them; and if, after that, one of them kills a bunch of innocent Americans while shouting ALLAHU AKBAR, then Trump will make it a single-issue campaign with that back-and-forth sound bite played over and over: either you’re for securing the border or you’re not; if you don’t have a border, you don’t have a country; we’re at war, and one candidate wants to stop enemy combatants from walking right past our defenses while the other is trying to let more of them in.
Well, Trump could shut up and let the drumbeat of actual bad news coming from the Democrats side take his place in the news cycle:
- The $400 million delivered on the same day the Iran deal was reached.
- DNC officials still quitting because of DWS and email crap
- Lousy* GDP report
- HRC lying on Fox News about what the Comey report really meant in regards to her statements to the American people and Congress, a lie so egregious even WaPo called her out on it
- Wikileaks releasing the voice recordings. (I assume people are still listening to them? I would have expected something to come out of them by now.)
I don’t think this will win him the election, but it will help turn the tide so that the news isn’t always about dumping on Trump.
*I think this is more of a secular, long-term trend than anything the President is in charge of, but it is happening now under a Democrat’s watch, so it can be reported as bad news for HRC
i picked “Anything I didn’t look at/consider as a variable” because:
1,2,3: while those events might give Trump a boost in the polls temporarily, chances are he would screw it up by saying something tasteless and offensive.
4: sure Trump could debate well; he might also sprout wings and fly over the moon.
5: i would say the Pubbie establishment is every bit as frightened of a Trump presidency as the rest of us, so probably no.
so there’s a chance Trump might win, but it will be for some other crazy reason!
The first two, but they’d have to expose serious problems in the Obama administration led to the events. Not the usual political story-telling, we’d have to see that Obama was covering up an imminent economic crisis in the way Bush Jr. did for example, and even then there isn’t much time left to clear the fog around such circumstances so that it would be obviously an intentional bad act that could be linked to Hillary, even indirectly, but convincingly enough to drive down turnout for her. Realistically, it’s too late for that to happen.
There are ~30k emails HRC deleted from the server… if those appear, and many are classified, that could do the trick.
Health issues
I voted for 3 and 4. I don’t think that either are very likely but they are more likely that the others.
- There are only three months left before the election. I don’t see that the economy can move south quickly enough to make much of a difference. Even a financial catastrophe like in 2008 will take 6 moths or so to be felt in main street.
- A year ago or so I would have considered this to be a top contender but we’ve had a couple of terrorist attacks here and a string of them across Europe and Clinton is still doing OK.
- My main concern. If there are emails showing honest to god accepting of bribes or political malfeasance it could potentially scuttle Clinton. And as others have said it is difficult to check the authenticity of Assange’s releases, so he could make a dump of mostly real varifiable e-mails and then sprinkle in some fake damning evidence and it would be hard to discredit it.
- Not very likely (or even possible) but the only thing on the list that if it happened would be guaranteed to turn the election.
- A strong debate performance by Trump might marginally improve his numbers , but not enough to overcome his flaws. Clinton is a good debater and won’t make any huge errors if she plays it safe.
Maybe if you found unequivocal evidence of treason. Otherwise any minor didos will be lost in the political noise.
Health issues won’t matter, at this point people will vote based on Tim Kaine becoming president over Teh Donald.
Sex scandal. Clinton is caught with a dead boy or a live girl.
Yeah, stuff like that.
I think he’s close to the edge, but not quite over it. Not just yet. We still have, what, 6 weeks until the debates? Nate Silver’s predictions had Trump in a similarly precarious position at the end of June when he had been yammering away about the federal judge. I agree with you that Trump has lost some of his swing voters permanently – there’s no question. And this is especially true in a state like New Hampshire, and it is also probably true in Eastern Pennsylvania, which will probably once and for all tilt the Keystone state toward Clinton. Another big gaffe or even a small series of typical episodes of Donald being Donald over the next two weeks, and I’d pretty much write him off for good. It’s a very likely possibility given the fact that Trump has now kicked up a hornet’s nest of train wreck press coverage.
I chose the last option. I think the only way Trump can win is for him to change the whole path his campaign is on. I don’t think it’s likely to happen but imagine the following things happening.
- Trump wakes up tomorrow and decides he wants to win the race and take the job of being president seriously.
- Trump stops trying to further rile up his base. He decides to put his theory of “shooting a man on 5th avenue and not lose support” to the test. But instead of doing that he decides to stop talking about what he has been so far. No more talk about banning Muslims, building a wall, deporting all the Mexicans, etc. No more attacks on people like the Khan’s, who are just grieving the loss of there son and not secret Islamist terrorists.
- Trump stops attacking fellow Republicans. He endorses Ryan and McCain. If a fellow Republican attacks him, he says that he has a respectful disagreement with that person on that particular issue, rather than attacking them as a liar, crooked, small handed, etc.
- He really does start hiring smart people to come up with a legitimate plan to improve things that need working on. Real experts on the economy, foreign policy, the environment, terrorism etc. begin to advise him. He takes their advice.
- As the policy proposals of these experts come rolling in, he explains those proposals to the American people. He talks about how he will work closely with congress on getting legislation passed that would help all Americans become safer, healthier, more prosperous, etc.
- He appears to be taking all of the above seriously and seems to genuinely interested in helping to improve the lives of ordinary Americans.
Little Nemo wrote: “I’ve said in the past the Trump’s best chance for winning was a major terrorist attack right before Election Day which would panic people into voting for him.”
I’ve said this too. I would also add that the people with the ability to make another Orlando or Dallas happen are not unaware of this fact.
Well after looking at the jobs report and other economic data, I doubt that a depression is likely. The economy could slow down but not enough to be meaningful. The economy isn’t paying people well and isn’t creating a sense of job security, but American workers have almost gotten used to living in that sort of economic climate in the post-recession era.
Terrorism and other national security issues are probably the one factor that would be most likely to cause people to question voting for Hillary. But Trump now finds himself at odds with much of the intelligence, foreign policy, and military communities that it just doesn’t seem likely that he’s in a great position to capitalize on this even if it happens. I’ve actually wondered if the Khan remarks were his only headache or if it wasn’t also the fact that Trump’s been so outrageous on foreign policy and national security questions that even traditional republican allies have defected to Clinton. The most egregious sin a candidate can make, even one with a cult-like following like Trump, is to appear to be out of control.
At this point, Trump can’t really win it outright by himself. Without question he needs to get back on message quickly, but that alone won’t help now. He needs Clinton to make some unforced errors. The debate is the best, most realistic opportunity for him to close any sort of ground, but he’d need to be within 10 percentage points to make any sort of progress after a debate. Clinton isn’t an outstanding debater but she doesn’t have to be, either. She just needs to not look weak.
Trump winning would probably require a few different factors including more terrorist attacks, an economic downturn, and him taking a “radical centrist” approach to the platform (ie supporting legalizing marijuana, taking a firm populist economic stance such as emphasizing his 500 billion dollar infrastructure plan). But I think any of his paths to victory will include Juanita Broaddrick who 1) has endorsed Trump, 2) unlike many other allegations against Bill Clinton can’t be even remotely classified as “consensual” or even as “merely harassment”, 3) hasn’t been discredited, and 4) contrasts incredibly with Hillary Clinton’s past statements on rape victims. If anything, I’m surprised Trump hasn’t been trotting out Broaddrick at his rallies and mentioning her name over and over on Twitter, although I suspect he’s keeping it for a final Battle of the Bulge style counterattack in fall, perhaps to be even suddenly brought up in a Presidential debate.
The long list of women alleged to have slept with Bill Clinton on a voluntary basis does act, in some peoples minds, to undercut allegations of rape on his part.
The e-mail thing is unlikely to become a major issue. But the Clinton’s charity, from which 90% of their revenue goes to “overhead”, if the money could actually be traced through to show that the Clintons were personally taking the money and spending it on vacation tours, hookers, and mansions around the world, I think that might piss some people off.
Sorry starving children, Bill needed his hookers and blow!
Note that the overhead does seem to be on actual charitable work. So the information would need to show that these programs are shams.
Clinton’s emails shouldn’t be an issue, but while we were cackling over Trump’s inability to get himself out of his own verbal quicksand, Hillary was still struggling to get past her flexible interpretation of the truth and the differences between her accounts and James Comey’s.
I don’t think this is over at all, and I think people are celebrating a bit early. This has been a weird election year, and the weirdness will probably continue to amaze. I know people want to believe that this is Barry Goldwater LBJ all over again. It may be, but there’s always a chance it might be something else. History has parallels but it doesn’t always repeat itself.
I think the worst-case scenario on the emails is “they’re both liars; one is crazy.”
Not really seeing how that’s a problem for Hillary.
No, the worst case scenario is that her inability to put the email questions behind her keeps Hillary’s negatives constant. Again, Hillary is not more popular; Trump is simply less popular – but only for now. Hillary is the reality candidate. We don’t want reality. We want fantasy. We want life to be like a television show. Donald Trump is the reality TV candidate. We laugh and like the shit he says even if we hate it and have to clean out our ear wax to make sure we’re hearing him correctly.
Both candidates have a ceiling. Donald Trump’s ceiling lowered ever so slightly this past week, which is why it’s critical that Hillary slightly increase hers. But stumbling over the same questions about questions about her email servers – questions she should be handling gracefully – is not a good sign. It reinforces her negatives and keeps her ceiling where it is.
It’s especially problematic because if, let’s say, Assange , the Russians, or whoever releases new information showing some sort of dubious connections with terrorism, especially if it happens in close chronological proximity to global or domestic incidents, makes her vulnerable. Her negatives could go higher and her ceiling could get lower.
“Here it is…indisputable evidence that Hillary Clinton has been a paid agent of the Chinese government since 1968. We’ve got her on tape and everything.”
“Wow! This is outright treason! … But when you think about it … a President who’s working for China probably isn’t as bad as one who’s working for Putin … so I guess I’m still going to vote for her.”